## Facts

- Parents of first- to third-grade students in a public school district objected to a written psychological assessment questionnaire administered to students.
- The questionnaire included questions referencing sexual topics.
- The parents alleged the questionnaire exposed their children to sexual matters inconsistent with the parents’ personal and religious values.
- The parents sued the school district and officials, asserting federal constitutional claims grounded in substantive due process and a related privacy theory.
- The district court dismissed the federal claims under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim and dismissed state-law claims without prejudice.
- On appeal, the parents pursued only the substantive due process claim and the overlapping privacy claim.
- After an initial appellate decision affirming dismissal, the parents sought rehearing en banc; the panel declined and reaffirmed its decision.

## Issues

1. Whether the Fourteenth Amendment’s substantive due process protection of parental rights includes a right to control or limit information a public school provides to students, including sexual content presented through a questionnaire.
2. Whether a cognate constitutional privacy right allows parents to prevent a public school from exposing children to such information or eliciting responses through a school-administered assessment.
3. Whether the complaint plausibly stated a federal constitutional claim sufficient to survive dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6).

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of the federal substantive due process and privacy claims under Rule 12(b)(6).
- The court held parents do not have a federal constitutional right to restrict or veto information public schools provide to students, including sexual information.
- The court treated the privacy claim as overlapping with the substantive due process claim and rejected it on the same basis.
- The panel denied rehearing and rehearing en banc and reaffirmed its prior decision.
- The dismissal without prejudice of state-law claims remained intact.

## Legal Principles

- Parents have a protected liberty interest in directing the upbringing and education of their children, but that interest does not include a constitutional right to dictate public school curriculum or control information public schools present to enrolled students.
- The Constitution does not recognize a general parental privacy right to censor information made available to children in public schools.
- Disputes over educational content are primarily for school authorities and local political processes, not federal constitutional litigation, absent a recognized constitutional violation.
- A complaint challenging curricular or school-provided information fails to state a substantive due process claim where it asserts only a parental right to be the exclusive source of information on sexual matters or to override school educational judgments.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that, although parents retain broad authority over their children’s upbringing and may choose educational alternatives, the Fourteenth Amendment does not give parents a substantive due process or privacy right to control the information public schools provide to students; accordingly, the federal claims were properly dismissed for failure to state a claim.


Fields v. Palmdale Sch. Dist., 447 F.3d 1187 (9th Cir. 2006)